Progressive candidates in Aurora City Council races are hoping to make a strong showing Tuesday, against tough odds, as they seek to make inroads on the conservative-leaning body.
The large city’s council races are among metro Denver’s most notable contests and ballot measures in the off-year election. This story will be updated Tuesday night after the first results are posted by the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office and county clerks shortly after 7 p.m.
Voters in at least 65 cities and towns across Colorado have been mulling municipal contests in the election. More than 100 municipal ballot issues — many of them revolving around tax and charter language updates — are up for a vote statewide.
Aurora City Council
In Aurora, 13 candidates are jostling for five council positions in Colorado’s third-largest city — three representing individual wards and two elected at large. The ranks of left-leaning council members in Aurora have thinned over the last few election cycles, starting with Mike Coffman, a former Republican congressman, winning the mayor’s seat in 2019.
In this cycle, conservative kingmakers have far outspent their counterparts in support of right-leaning hopefuls and incumbents in the races. Building Aurora’s Future, a conservative independent expenditure committee, had $280,000 on hand as of late October, versus just a few thousand for New Era Colorado Action Fund.
Littleton’s Measure 3A
The most compelling suburban Denver issue this fall comes out of Littleton, where voters in the southern city are being asked to decide whether stronger guardrails should be erected against denser styles of housing in the city of 45,000.
The campaign for Measure 3A has spawned countless yard signs and even a traveling billboard — a truck plastered with a trio of electronic screens urging voters to check “yes.” The Littleton City Council passed a resolution last month urging voters to turn down the measure.
The citizen-initiated measure emerged as Colorado has spent the last several years trying to alleviate the state’s housing affordability crisis. As the General Assembly has passed laws to encourage homebuilding, a number of municipalities have pushed back — even in the courts — in an effort to protect their housing stock and the character of their neighborhoods from overbuilding.
Central City’s Measure 2A
For those with bawdier interests than single-family homes versus triplexes, look no further up the road than Central City. Voters there will be deciding whether sexually oriented businesses should be allowed to open on the gambling town’s historic Main Street in Measure 2A.
The town’s current restrictions — strip clubs and the like can locate only in industrial areas of town — spurred a lawsuit last year in federal court by Rick’s Cabaret and Steakhouse. It hasn’t been able to feature nudity at its downtown Central City location for lack of obtaining a sexually oriented business license.
Fire department, district funding
There’s a lot of money being requested Tuesday from agencies both north and south of Denver that provide fire and rescue services to a wide swath of the metro population.
In Denver’s northern suburbs, Westminster voters will be asked to pass a 0.4% sales and use tax to raise $14 million annually to hire 30 firefighters and emergency medical and support personnel. The money from Measure 3H would also fund the construction of a new fire station, as well as the purchase of new emergency vehicles.
The South Adams County Fire District, which covers fast-growing Commerce City and adjacent areas, is asking voters for a 0.5% sales tax bump. The increase would raise $12.5 million a year to quicken response times, lower ambulance costs and ensure firefighters and paramedics have the proper training and life-saving equipment. The ballot issue is Measure 6A.
South of Denver, one of metro Denver’s largest firefighting forces — serving nearly 600,000 residents — is on the ballot asking for a property tax increase to address an anticipated $500 million shortage over the next decade. If South Metro Fire Rescue’s Measure 7A passes, a homeowner with a $750,000 house — the district’s average — will pay about $140 more per year.
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